Unstoppable Stalkers
As you’ll see throughout this exploration, throughout the Resident Evil series, they’ve taken a lot inspiration from the Terminators being an unstoppable stalker character. Many games have unstoppable stalkers and I can look back to the likes of Berzerk on the Atari where you’d frequently be chased by an unkillable enemy, but I think everyone will agree that even if other games had this element, nothing embraced it as much as the Resident Evil franchise has with their characters Mr X, and Nemesis, in Resident Evil 2 and 3, and their remakes and later with Jack Baker and Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil 7 and Village.
When we first meet the Tyrant in Resident Evil 1, we see that he is in a glass tube and both completely naked and dormant. This is because like a lot of the monsters in the Resident Evil games that we see in glass tubes, this is to give the idea that they are manufactured. In the Terminator series, starting with a specifically shot trailer for Terminator 2, it shows that the T800 Terminators as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger are produced on a production line.
Both the T800 and the Tyrant are shown to have hulking physical builds, and although there are differences in how they are introduced to audiences, there are further similarities.
The T800 is shown in both Terminator 1 and Terminator 2 to arrive from the future into the present day completely naked. I’m having to be careful with any usage of footage in this video as it is, but as I don’t think I’ll be able to show naked Arnold, even if it is for educational purposes, I’ll instead show how his arrival in Terminator 2 is portrayed in the Sega Mega Drive game.
As you can see, the naked Terminator model T101 arrives positioned on one knee and slowly rises to standing and then calmly walks towards his targets. Instead of arriving in electricity, the Tyrant T-001 escapes the glass tube and then lands with one knee forward and slowly rises before walking to it’s target.
What’s in a Name?
Now let’s look at the names of Terminators that are in the franchise. The Terminators all have names like the T-800, T1000, T-X and model numbers like T101. For some reason, it’s like Skynet went with the naming system similar to Atari did with their home computers and consoles or Commodore did with their Amiga lines of computers. This is understandable as the Terminator films originated in the 1980s and continued into the early 1990s.
Resident Evil followed suit with the naming system of their Tyrant biological weapons in the mid to late 1990s. So, we got Tyrants that are named T-001, T-002 and Mr X.
So, from the Arnie Terminator which is traditionally known as T800 or model T101 there is the first Tyrant T-001 and upgrades T-102 and T1000. The T-103 is also known as Mr X, although it’s worth noting that this Tyrant was from Resident Evil 2 which predated the release of Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines where we would get the T-X Terminator.
But it’s no surprise that this naming pattern would continue back over at the Terminator films as whilst the 1980s and early 90s were all about the numbers 500, 1000 and especially 2000, by the late 90s and early noughties the cool thing to name things was with the letter X (like Degeneration X, Xbox and extreme Improv.
And let’s look at the purpose of both the Terminators and the Tyrants. In the Terminator films we have these killer robots who are sent back in time as hunters (and yes there are Resident Evil monsters called hunters) who have a specific target they’re going after. In the first Terminator film, the T800 is after Sarah Conner, and in the following film they’re after their real target which is her son John Conner.
Meanwhile in the second Resident Evil game, the Tyrant-103 AKA Mr X is continually after the carrier of the G-Virus sample. This is either Ada Wong or Sherry Birkin. So like in the Terminator films, the Terminor and Mr X are either after an adult female, or a small child. Unlike Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film who is something of a damsel in distress, Ada is more capable and a fighter like how Sarah becomes in Terminator 2.
Programmable Monsters
Undoubtably though, the bigger comparison is that the Terminator and Mr X both pursue a child who then needs a protector to help them escape and defeat their assailant.
There are several games that introduced a Terminator like final boss, with both Rise of the Robots and Body Blows being two examples of such games that I’ve previously featured on the Geek Battle Gaming YouTube Channel, I’d say it was Resident Evil that really looked to develop this further.
After the Tyrant would chase you around single areas in the first game, Mr X was the evolution of the Terminator like character and he was the first character that would pursue you throughout many areas. In Resident Evil 2, Mr X would only turn up in specific rooms at set times. Where as all of the enemies in the first game were shown to be somewhat mindless and driven by their instinct to eat flesh, and only a couple being shown as even intelligent enough to open doors, Mr X is the first of Umbrella’s bio weapon which can be given a specific mission. In this case he is pursuing Sherry Birkin or Ada Wong as the people that carry the sample of the G-Virus.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how any biological weapons in the Resident Evil games are programmed or controlled. From what I was able to look up they may have some kind of electronic device implanted in them to control them but giving them specific missions is very much like the Terminators.
By the time Capcom made Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, they developed this concept even more, with the titular Nemesis enemy being able to chase the player from room to room. The Nemesis also famously says the word ‘Stars’ to reflect that his mission is to hunt after members of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service police unit that the main character of the game, Jill Valentine is part of.
Terminator Vision
This may be slightly cheating as it comes from the second live action Resident Evil movie rather than one of the games, but in Resident Evil Apocalypse, the Nemesis monster is shown to have a heads up display within his vision and this makes him even more Terminator like. It’s covered with zeros and ones, and lists his targets and info on his ammo and risk factors of threat. The biggest thing is that Nemesis’s vision is shown to be covered in a blue filter much like the Terminator’s is red.
Speaking of that red filter, the Red Queen in Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles also sees things through a red filter.
Jill Becomes Sarah Connor
If you weren’t convinced that Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 is an even more blatant take on the terminator than Mr X was in Resident Evil 2, then perhaps Jill Valentine basically being Sarah Connor in this game may convince you.
The second Terminator film starts with opening narration from Sarah Conner, and this theme is continued with Jill Valentine giving opening narration during the start of Resident Evil 3. The general tone of this and the music underscoring the scene also has a similar vibe.
Jill even cocks a gun one handed in RE3 to shoot Nemesis which is like how Sarah cocked the gun to shoot the T1000 at the end of Terminator 2. In Sarah’s case this was because she was injured by the T1000, but in the case of Jill, there is no specific reason she does this other than for it to reference Sarah Connor.
Add to this that in Resident Evil Remake, Jill has an extra costume in Resident Evil 1 where she is wearing a tank top and black baseball cap much like Sarah Conner in Terminator 2. This look for Jill of course is continued within Resident Evil 5 with Jill’s BSAA look.
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